Soft power is the ability to mold the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. The main tool of soft power is culture, politics, foreign policies, and media framing. Mainly soft power attracts people through its attractive appeal and not through force, coercion, or payments. The more legitimate one seems or the policies we produce seem, the softer power control we have. The United States is pretty powerful military wise, but also in its soft power control in the world. Other countries like France and the UK are also extremely powerful worldwide when it comes to producing soft power. France, however, prefers to also use hard power to shove its culture and ideas down people’s throats. Companies are extremely powerful at creating soft power for the average person. Think of Nestle company, they control the Hot chocolate game and the water game, you can barely buy any product that isn’t owned by the company. Yet we associate them with milk and happiness because as children we watched commercials that made us happy and want to beg our parents for that particular product. Americans, in particular, are shaped by advertisements and companies, Coke helped stabilize the image of Santa Clause and polar bears. Most companies have a special place in our hearts due to the advertisements and where our family works, they are so trusted in many Boomers’ lives that these companies can get away with killing our planet. These companies have become so much a part of American’s lives that the young generations are seen as “destroying” American culture. #okayboomer. Ironically, they are so influential with both hard and soft power, that they can change how our politicians think.

According to Joseph Nye the more you can get someone to admire “your ideals and to want what you want, you can do not have to spend as much on sticks and carrots to move them in your direction.” Seduction is a very powerful tool at convincing humans to change entire opinions, people like Osama bin Laden and Hitler were both influenced by soft power rather than hard power. As General Wesley Clark put it, soft power “gave us an influence far beyond the hard edge of traditional balance-of-power politics.” There is a lot of media framing that goes into soft power. Media framing is the representing of an idea in a particular way to represent one’s own personal biases. Simply it is the angle or perspective information is told. Framing is a set of interpretations, collection of stereotypes, anecdotes, that individuals rely on to understand or interpret an event. These are mental filters that are produced by various influences. This blog post is media framing, your journal, and etc. is all a part of a framing tool. Perhaps your own work is helping out a larger framing network. This happens and is why we have people like Uncle Toms or people we see as betrayers of their race or culture.

Framing is an ideological act, whether or not we are aware of it, and a frame of a story has an influence on how other stories are investigated and reported, who a journalist decided to talk to, and what questions are asked during the interview. Take for example how Media chooses to write about mass killings if the person is a Muslim regardless if that person is a lone gunman, crazy, or actually a part of something, they are a terrorist. Yet a white man or even now a black man (as long as they aren’t Muslim), who murders for obviously prejudice far-right means pro-white/pro-black means, they are simply misunderstood, lone-wolfs, and etc. News can influence how people perceive others. Going away from Islamophobia, we can point to the 2008 election when media focused on what Sarah Palin wore or Hilary Clinton but focused on actual issues the other candidates had to offer. Trump in some news outlets is painted as a misunderstood, smart, sad, powerful man, while in others he is a crazy Hitler man. These framing issues is why its important to not rely on one form of news outlet! Regardless if you are far-right, far-left, or whatever.

Soft power for countries, politicians, authority figures, companies, the internet or whatever, can get the outcomes it desires in the world because others admire its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and wanting to follow it completely. Think of how many times you have become depressed due to Instagram models or how Instagram creates a false visage of perfection. It, soft power, also relies on shaping the mindsets of others. Trump is a beautiful example of being an attractive leader by appearing as someone that the Americans voted for him wanted. Trump during his campaign was a white man, who dressed nicely, was wealthy, and wasn’t traditionally in politics. He was the opposite of President Obama, including his wife, which is what the vast majority of the white population wanted. For those who didn’t care about his whiteness, he also appears as a successful businessman. He was wealthy, had a good tv-show, acted in a few movies, has a tower in Chicago, and an author. So, for those business owners what wanted a change, he seemed a great option. For those who were extremely racist and sexist, he also had that covered, and still does. Trump appeared attractive enough to many different demographics in the United States, that’s one reason he elected. This attractiveness wore off quickly and many have worked to openly expose the Truth about his business practices, policies, and etc.

Soft power is so successful because most of us don’t actually research what we are exposed to. This is changing of course, and soft power will change with it. We can point to how social justice warriors quickly dive into someone’s social media account to find evidence of anything foul, find it and destroy the person. Often causing their victims to commit suicide or go through some serious trauma. Regardless if a person deserves it or not, the victims (or sometimes they aren’t victims) aren’t allowed room for growth or improvement. Social justice also tells its believers and followers what is correct and not and doesn’t allow any wriggle room like Far-righters themselves. They use soft power and media framing to young individuals who want to feel powerful and feel like they are making a difference. Instead, it does more harm than good.

Soft power is one of the hardest to recognize for anyone because it is attractive and presented as such. When a politician tugs at our heartstrings, or someone yells “what about the children” we are able to be influenced. Far-Righters can gain followers by appealing to their human condition far more easily. Mostly because those who follow cults or extremist groups do so because these groups are attractive to the individual. I use the term Big Brother uses soft power because Big Brother is a good catch-all term for an organization, we all see as “dangerous” or “bad”. At the end of the day we have to realize that soft and hard power, even media framing isn’t going to go away. We have had these types of influence since the dawn of man but understanding how someone might control us or something is a great way not to be influenced. As En Vogue said, “Free your mind and the rest will follow”.